[Sent to Mukta, Telangana Women’s Collective through Vimala Katineni on 28th January 2017]
I shall not dwell interminably on the history of art in Telangana or what, if at all, was its feminist content. As a writer who once had the ambition to be a painter because of considerable appreciation from individuals and organisations, put paid by a marriage into a family which disapproved of such ambitions in a woman, I can only talk of the desire to communicate ideas in both literature and art.
Irrespective of who and where a person is from, she has an innate desire, nay, an irressistible urge to communicate. We live in socially cohesive groups simply because communicating with each other is easy when the social, historical, linguistic context is more or less common. And what is this communication about? It is about sharing a part of your mindscape with others, of transmitting ideas, about agonising over the human condition together, all without baring our own vulnerabilities. Every human being is afraid of being hurt and to show vulnerability is to expose yourself to social and cultural, if not physical, violence. So how do we fulfil these criteria and share our innermost thoughts? We do it through arts.
In story telling, a writer fictionalises the real story, the raw emotion, the subversive thought, the innate, even socially unacceptable desires, by giving it a separate name with a character, thus distancing herself from the content; the distance being a shield. In a painting, the same emotions and thoughts and desires are fictionalised through symbols and colours. These are not photographs because they are about the state of being of an artist. And just like literature, the creativity of the painter lies in her capacity to interact with the viewer without explicitly revealing herself. The painting is a site of meeting with a stanger to explore common sensibilities, to share the agony and ecstasy and yet remain aloof. Both literature and painting have a transformative effect on the creator and the consumer of art. Once a piece of literature or art has been put in the public domain, it takes on a dynamic of its own, as Urvashi Butalia told me when my book was published. It also brings about, through its interpretation, a transformation in the reader or viewer, through its influence on their minds.
The marginalised, the subalterns, the ‘others’, in any society have always been silenced, simply by a collective conspiracy to turn ‘deaf’. This has been a common historical experience of all women across the world at all times. A woman’s thoughts are ‘not seriously intellectual’, her pain is ‘every woman’s pain’, her tears are ‘childish’, she is an ‘emotional fool’, proffessionally incompetent, sexually inert and inherently immoral, if she expresses any of her desires that ‘society disapproves of’. A woman is a second class citizen in her own home with a first class capacity to serve and then disappear. She is only a ghost presence. However, even ghosts express themselves, if you have heard or seen ghost stories. It has always been an uphill task to get women writers published, women artists having their own curated exhibitions and even if they do, not being adequately covered by the media.
The largest community of the marginalised, the subalterns, the outcastes: the women, have also found mediums of expression in writing, in music and dance and in painting. It is here that they can make their innermost thoughts, ideas, desires and emotions work for them, bring to fruition, live their dreams and most importantly, register their presence by putting across their own counter narrative of the society, hold a mirror to the ugly face of patriarchy, parading in the guise of religion or culture or male supremacy. A woman’s painting is a one-piece-of-canvas-literature out there, challenging male hegemony. And that, they continue to display their creativity despite the conspiracy of silence, should be appreciated. We make up fifty percent of the population; we can always appreciate each other, whether men want to participate or not. Ours is the biggest network with the highest cultural capital of creativity.